


The Twelve Days of "Fuck You, Bond."

by steelplatedhearts



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-15
Updated: 2012-12-15
Packaged: 2017-11-21 04:13:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/593328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelplatedhearts/pseuds/steelplatedhearts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the first day of Christmas, James Bond gave to me: a <i>fuckton</i> of problems, that's what.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Twelve Days of "Fuck You, Bond."

**Author's Note:**

> There is an excellent reason for this: I am deliriously sick with a fever, have had a lot of nyquil, and was in a car six hours in a row. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

“It’s not exactly Christmas, is it?”

“You want Christmas? I’ll give you bloody Christmas.”

*   *   *   *   *

 

_On the first day of Christmas, Q branch gave to me: an Aston Martin with an ejector seat._

“I don’t know why you insisted we make you an all-new car,” Q grumbles, tinkering with the engine. “You’re just going to blow it up again, I can guarantee it.”

“Let’s call it ‘sentimental value’, Bond says, running his hand over the body. “She looks gorgeous, Q.”

“Well of course it does,” Q says, puffing up slightly. “I made it.”

“ _She_ ,” Bond says. “Always, she.”

He starts waxing poetic about fine cars and fine women and something about treating them both with respect, and it’s all very _Bond_ , so Q stops listening very quickly.

“ _Oi_ , loverboy _,_ ” he says, snapping his fingers in front of Bond’s face. “Car’s done.” He tosses Bond the keys. “Not a scratch on it, you hear me? We have better things to funnel the budget towards than your vanity cars.”

“Like _what_?” Bond asks. “Last mission you gave me a gun and a sodding _radio_ , that’s hardly breaking the bank.”

“Not all of what we do is making trinkets for you to lose,” Q says, rolling his eyes. “Now get out of my office.”

*   *   *   *   *

Eve pokes her head around the door, looking sheepish. “We’re monitoring 007’s progress upstairs, and—”

“He blew up the car, didn’t he?” Q asks, head in hands.

“That he did,” Eve says. “Sorry.”

“Well, I’m not making him another one.”

*   *   *   *   *

He makes another one, because of _course_ he does.

*   *   *   *   *

 

_On the second day of Christmas, Q branch gave to me: two jet packs._

“Well, this is certainly a step up from the gun and the radio,” Bond says, admiration creeping into his voice.

“Tanner’s idea, actually,” Q says. “Didn’t want you falling to your apparent death again.”

“And you think that’s likely?” Bond says, raising an eyebrow.

“You blew up a car last mission,” Q says, raising his eyebrow right back. “I’ve been reading through your files—everything that _can_ go wrong on your missions _will_ go wrong. It’s almost a guarantee.”

“I’m wounded,” Bond says, examining his jet pack. “Does my 00 status mean nothing to you people?”

Q adjusts his glasses, glaring at Bond over his coffee cup. “It would mean significantly more if you ever once managed to bring everything back in one piece.”

*   *   *   *   *

 

_On the third day of Christmas, Q branch gave to me: three dart guns._

“It’ll knock the victim out for around an hour,” Q says, taking the gun away from Bond. “Don’t _fiddle_ with it.”

“I’m a trained killer, Q,” Bond says, rolling his eyes and taking the gun back. “I think I can handle a dart gun.”

Which is when it fires, catching Q squarely in the neck.

*   *   *   *   *

“Q?”

Q groans, eyes fluttering. “Ow.”

“Are you all right?”

“Clearly not, you _buffoon_ ,” he says, blinking. “I repeat: _ow._ ”

“Sorry,” Bond says, looking chagrined. “I’ll just head out, shall I?”

“Someone stop him!” Q says from the floor. “Take the dart gun back, I don’t bloody trust him with it!”

*   *   *   *   *

Bond makes it away with the dart gun, and Q hardly breathes until he comes back from the mission without having accidentally shot himself.

There are a few close calls, but he doesn’t actually go down, much to Q branch’s collective chagrin (the interns had been placing bets.)

*   *   *   *   *

 

_On the fourth day of Christmas, Q branch gave to me: four computer hacks._

“All right, Bond,” Q says, eyes locked on his computer. “Put the flash drive in the computer and upload the virus.”

“I still think this is technically cheating,” Bond says, voice crackling through the earpiece.

Q clicks his tongue at Bond. “How very _agent-ish_ of you, thinking that explosions are the only way to solve things.”

“Not the _only_ way,” Bond argues. “There’s also shooting people. I didn’t get to shoot anyone this mission. Sneaking around is all well and good, but it’s not very interesting, you know.”

“You can shoot someone later. Now upload the virus.”

There’s a moment of silence, then the very loud sounds of alarms.

“Shit.”

“‘Shit’ is right, Q,” Bond growls. “What the hell happened?”

“Hang on,” Q says, frantically typing away. “I’m getting into their system—I think they recognized my code as not right.”

“You had one job, Q,” Bond snarls. “Good _God_.”

“Yeah, you might want to run now,” Q says, fingers flying over the keyboard. “I’ve established a connection with their network, I’ll have to get past their security and rewrite the virus from scratch, but it should get the job done. Look on the bright side—at least you get to shoot people now.”

“That shouldn’t make me forgive you,” Bond says, punctuating his words with gunfire.

“That should, by all rights, get you referred back to the psychologist,” Q says. “Thankfully, things don’t always do what they should.”

*   *   *   *   *

_On the fifth day of Christmas, Q branch gave to me: FIVE EXPLODING PENS._

“I thought you said you didn’t do exploding pens anymore.”

“There’s always room for a little nostalgia,” Q says. “Three clicks to arm, three to disarm. All very straightforward. Here, take as many as you like.”

“How many do you _have_?” Bond asks, surveying the crates of pens.

Q sighs. “Too many. They’re easy to make, and Mallory liked the idea of exploding pens. Wanted the agents to have convenient explosives to carry around with them. I said it was a bad idea—pens can click on accident very easily—but I was overruled.”

Bond takes five.

*   *   *   *   *

“Your bloody pens don’t always work,” Bond says when he gets back from—wherever the hell he’d been, Q finds it difficult to keep track.

“What happened?”

“I was in a jam, so I whipped out a pen, clicked it three times, threw it—and nothing.”

Q raises an eyebrow. “Nothing? Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m _sure,”_ Bond says. “I would have noticed an explosion.”

“Hmm,” Q says. “Well, there’s the problem with mass-producing things, I suppose. We’ll look into it.”

“I almost _died._ ”

“That’s never bothered you before.”

Bond starts to say something and then thinks better of it. He takes a pen, clicks it three times quickly, then slaps it on Q’s desk and leaves. Q’s eyes widen.

“Everyone down!” he yells, ducking behind a whiteboard. His staff jumps behind various pieces of furniture or just drops to the floor and covers their heads. They wait with baited breath for a beat, then another, which stretches into a third…

Q frowns. _It should have gone off by now._

He creeps hesitantly out from behind the whiteboard to inspect the pen, which turns out to contain no explosives at all.

_Damn him_.

*   *   *   *   *

 

_On the sixth day of Christmas, Q branch gave to me: six tickets for flying._

“There’s _no need_ to make six transfers to fly to New York,” Bond says, appalled, rifling through the envelope Q had handed him. “Good god—why is this taking me through South Africa?”

“Security, Mr. Bond,” Q says, trying and failing to hide his smirk. “The more transfers you have, the harder it is to track you.”

“This is revenge for the pen, isn’t it?” Bond asks, glaring daggers.

_And the car, and the dart gun._

“Not at all, Mr. Bond,” Q says, smiling politely. “That would be unprofessional.”

*   *   *   *   *

“Bond went and got himself _arrested_ ,” Eve says in the break room.

“Oh?” Q says, with a calculated air of disinterest.

“Yeah, Eve says, leaning on the counter and raising an eyebrow. “Turns out he can only take seven hours of airports before getting _impatient_.”

“How unfortunate,” Q says, not even hiding the grin that spreads across his face.

*   *   *   *   *

“The next piece of special tech you give me is going to end up on fire,” Bond growls when he returns.

“That’s nice, Mr. Bond,” Q deadpans. “Marcie?”

“Yes sir?” she responds.

“Please send out a memo that Bond doesn’t get anything more interesting than a gun and a radio for the next two months,” he tells her, ignoring Bond’s snarls of indignation.  
“Right away,” she says, smirking.

*   *   *   *   *

 

_On the seventh day of Christmas, Q branch gave to me: seven tubes for breathing._

“Put this end in your mouth, pull the little tab there, and voila! Instant oxygen,” Q says, proud. Bond eyes him skeptically.

“What’s the story here, Q?”

“In Venice, you collapsed a building and almost drowned. In Turkey, you got shot and fell into a river. At Skyfall, you got stuck under ice. You got pushed into the Seine last month, and on Tuesday, you _dove out of the way of a bus and fell into the Thames_ ,” Q says, rolling his eyes. “You and water don’t really seem to _mix_. Your mission should be taking you to an island—we just want to be prepared.”

Bond glares at him, snatching the oxygen tank. “You know, this isn’t the way to encourage me to bring back the equipment.”

“You asked,” Q says, shrugging.

*   *   *   *   *

The tank is “lost” in an explosion (what else) when 007 makes his escape from the island.

Q expected nothing less.

*   *   *   *   *

 

_On the eighth day of Christmas, Q branch gave to me: eight rockets for launching_

“Now this is more like it!” Bond says with glee, hefting the rocket launcher over his shoulder. “Now we get to the good stuff.”

“Against my better judgment,” Q says from his perch on the table. “I want it known that I objected. Intensely.”

“Of course you did,” Bond says. “Because I’m just your trigger, and triggers don’t get to have any fun.”

“Damn straight,” Q says. “Try not to destroy entire cities, will you?”

“No promises,” Bond says, smirking.

*   *   *   *   *

The rocket launcher is returned in pristine condition, having blown up several tanks and killed a small army.

“Why is it that the equipment you like always makes it back in better condition than when it left?” Q asks, running his fingers over the rocket launcher.

Bond shrugs. “No reason.”

“It has nothing to do with the fact that you have a higher chance of getting it again?”

Bond grins. “Pure coincidence.”

*   *   *   *   *

_On the ninth day of Christmas, Q branch gave to me: nine guns for shooting._

“It’s fairly standard stuff this time around,” Q says, omitting the ‘thank _god_ ’ that he really wants to add. “Gun, radio—the basics.”

“What’s that?” Bond asks, indicating the wall.

“Ah, well,” Q says, frantically trying to come up with an explanation, “that’s a whiteboard.”

“I can see that,” Bond says dryly. “What’s _on_ the whiteboard?”

Q grimaces. “We take bets on which pieces of tech you’ll bring back.”

Bond raises an eyebrow. “Am I reading this right? You bet on me bringing everything back unharmed?”

“It’s not because I actually believe you’ll _do it,_ ” Q says, rolling his eyes. “But on the rare chance that it happens, I’ll make the most money.”

*   *   *   *   *

_On the tenth day of Christmas, Q branch gave to me: ten letters apologizing._

“No. No, no, _no_ ,” Q says, horrified. Eve nods her head sympathetically.

“It’s _yes_ , I’m afraid. Ten formal, written apology letters to Mr. Bond, for the six transfers, the malfunctioning equipment—”

“That was _not_ my fault,” Q splutters.

“At least, not that we can prove,” Eve says, raising an eyebrow. “But still. Mallory wants ten formal apology letters so Bond will quit whining and we can all carry on with our lives.”

“Fine,” Q snarls.

*   *   *   *   *

Dear Mr. Bond,

All of us here at Q branch sincerely apologize for the malfunctioning exploding pen (which was not technically our fault), the six transfers between London and New York (which we maintain was for your protection) and the other various equipment malfunctions you’ve had to deal with (again: which were not our fault). If you’d return things intact once in a while, maybe we wouldn’t be having this problem.

Sincerely, Q branch.

P.S. I’m not writing nine more of these.

*   *   *   *   *

_On the eleventh day of Christmas, Q branch gave to me: eleven belts for rappelling._

“This should be simple,” Q says, handing the belt over. “Press the buckle, a miniature grappling hook shoots out—it can carry up to two people. Furthermore, the odds of you losing this are very, very low, _because it’s attached_ _to you_.”

“You don’t have any faith at all in me, do you?”

“No. Now, I really really need this one back, all right? It’s the prototype, and this is the first field test—”

“You haven’t tested it?” Bond asks, eyes widening slightly. “Well, that makes me feel a little better about your opinion of me.”

“Of course we _tested_ it,” Q says, exasperated. “It just hasn’t been into the field yet. So I need this back so you can tell me how it works in real-life conditions.”

“Yes _sir_ ,” Bond says, throwing a sarcastic salute Q’s way.

*   *   *   *   *

“You lost the belt, didn’t you,” Q says, not even turning around when Bond walks into his office. “I don’t know what I expected, really.” He whirls around. “How do you even _lose a belt_? It’s buckled around your body the entire time! You know what,” he says, shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts. “It’s not important. Did you at least get any valuable information as to how it works?”

“Ah, no,” Bond says. “I never actually used it.”

“And yet you still lost it,” Q says, throwing his hands up.

“Well, I had to take it off. Can’t have sex with your pants on.”

“ _Get out of my office.”_

*   *   *   *   *

 

_On the twelfth day of Christmas, Q branch gave to me: twelve unexploded gadgets_

“Two guns, one earpiece, one radio, one watch, keys to one car, three exploding pens, one dart gun, an exploding belt buckle and one poison pill,” Bond lists off, dumping all the equipment on Q’s table. “I think you’ll find it’s all in order.”

Q stares at the pile in front of him, mouth hanging open. ‘”It’s all here.”

“Yes it is,” Bond says, proud.

“Nothing’s blown up.”

“No it’s not.”

“I could _kiss you_ ,” Q says weakly. “You just made me over a thousand pounds.”

“I’ll be expecting a cut of that,” Bond says.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Twelve Days of "Fuck You, Bond" by steelplatedhearts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2072055) by [DoraTLG](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoraTLG/pseuds/DoraTLG)




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